The total supply of hotel rooms in the State of Qatar reached about 39,635 rooms at the end of last April with the opening of new hotels, including the Rixos Hotel on Qetaifan Island, the Millennium Place Hotel, and the Riviera Rayhaan.
This reflects an increase in supply of approximately 45 percent over five years, Cushman & Wakefield said in its real estate market report for the first quarter of 2024.
The supply of hotel apartments exceeded 9,000 units, more than 70% of which are located in the West Bay area, and the supply is still dominated by high-end hotels and luxury apartments.
According to the STR Global classification, more than 31,000 rooms are classified as upscale or luxury, which is largely equivalent to four-star and five-star hotels.
While the increase in hotel supply has led to fears of oversupply, Qatar’s hotel real estate sector has received a boost in recent months with a significant rise in the number of visitors.
Hotels of various categories, ranging from five stars to two stars and one star, witnessed an increase in occupancy rates and revenues per available room.
The occupancy rate of three-star hotels reached 76 percent in April 2024, while the occupancy rate of four-star hotels reached 61 percent, and in the case of five-star hotels, hotel occupancy rates reached 58 percent during the same period.
Sector recovery
The large turnout from citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries contributed to the recovery of the tourism and travel sector in the State of Qatar over the past four months, with more than 872 thousand visitors, representing 44% of the total number of visitors in the period from January to April 2024.
According to Qatar Tourism statistics at the end of April, Saudi Arabia is still the largest contributor to the number of international visitors to Qatar, with more than 562,000 visitors arriving, representing 28% of the total visitors arriving to the country, while Bahrain ranked second in the Gulf with 95,000 visitors ( 5%), while the Sultanate of Oman ranked third with 79,000 visitors (4%), Kuwait with 76,000 visitors (4%), and the UAE with 60,000 visitors (3%).
Top markets
In terms of international visitors, the top markets for visitors after the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were India, 150,000 visitors (7%), Germany, 88,000 visitors (4%), the United Kingdom, 71,000 visitors (4%), and Italy, 44,000 visitors (2%). The distinguished numbers of Gulf visitors reflect the distinguished and advanced tourism infrastructure that Qatar enjoys, as well as tourist facilities such as hotels, restaurants, parks and beaches. The huge numbers of visitors, especially citizens of the Gulf countries, confirm Qatar’s leadership in tourism, as it has imposed itself on the international tourism map.